Austin Energy's monopoly to continue

City Hall Reporter Robert Grattan delves into Austin Energy’s potential change of leadership in tomorrow’s print issue of the Austin Business Journal, but before you read that I’d like to answer two questions on the mind of many Austinites — especially all the newcomers: Why can’t we choose our electric provider? And when will we be able to?

Here’s a quick crash course on why Austin Energy is allowed to have a monopoly in the city limits. When state lawmakers deregulated Texas’ electric market a little more than a decade ago, a few dozen municipally owned electric providers were allowed to keep their territories all their own for an unspecified amount of time. The reason, in very simple terms: Cities had invested hundreds of millions of dollars to build enough power plants or buy enough energy to serve a specific area. If companies came in and grabbed customers, cities such as Austin wouldn’t be able to pay for the power plants they thought they had to build to serve residents for decades to come.

“Changing the rules mid-game just ain’t fair,” is how one Senator put it when I was covering the deregulation process as a reporter.

So Austin Energy and others were protected. But no one said for how long. Leaders at City Hall have long been concerned about the day when Austin is deregulated — and rightly so.

In case you haven’t heard, Austin is known as a political piñata for the lawmakers who convene at the Capitol every two years. Longtimers here expect to see what’s known as Austin-bashing bills. We’re a weird, socially liberal haven in a big red state. When lawmakers arrive to their second home they sometimes like to rearrange the furniture.

But so far they haven’t focused their political power on Austin Energy. And experts say it won’t happen during the 2013 session. Maybe in 2015.

In the meantime, suburbs such as Pflugerville will continue to tout their deregulated market — and the fact that companies can pay less for electricity there.